The AIU announced today that Kenyan-born Bahraini Eunice Jepkirui Kirwa has been provisionally suspended for a positive test for EPO.

Prior to disappearing at the end of 2017 after winning the Macao International Marathon Kirwa was a familiar face in Japan, winning all seven of her races there between 2015 and 2017, taking 2nd in another in 2013, and medaling at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, 2015 Beijing World Championships and 2016 Rio Olympics.

It was notable that despite her string of international medals Kirwa never ran the big European and American races after hitting that level, her only appearance in the World Marathon Majors a DNF at the 2014 Boston Marathon and her only times running the biggest European marathons coming in 2012 and 2013 in Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt, all in the 2:21-2:23 range and making the top three twice.

Details of Kirwa’s case are still forthcoming, but below is a list of top finishers in the races mentioned above. Japanese women finished 2nd in all four of Kirwa’s biggest marathon wins including her three Nagoya Women’s Marathon victories, mirroring similar previous busts of frequent Japanese race winners like Russian Albina Mayorova and the Ukraine’s Tetiana Shmyrko.